Complete Works of Bram Stoker (41 page)

“No,” he answered, “not the slightest; their house is on the rock high over the spot, and quite away from any possible danger.” Then we relapsed into silence, as we each tried to think out a solution.

That night it rained more heavily than ever. The downfall was almost tropical  —  as it can be on the west coast  —  and the rain on the iron roof of the stable behind the hotel sounded like thunder; it was the last thing in my ears before I went to sleep. That night again I kept dreaming  —  dreaming in the same nightmare fashion as before. But although the working of my imagination centred round Knockcalltecrore and all it contained, and although I suffered dismal tortures from the hideous dreams of ruin and disaster which afflicted me, I did not on this occasion arouse the household. In the morning, when we met, Dick looked at my pale face and said: “Dreaming again, Art! Well, please God, it’s all nearly over now. One more day, and Norah will be away from Knockcalltecrore.” The thought gave me much relief. The next morning  —  on Thursday, the 28th of October  —  we should be on our way to Galway en route for London, while Dick would receive on my behalf possession of the property which I had purchased from Murdock. Indeed, his tenure ended at noon this very day; but we thought it wiser to postpone taking possession until after Norah had left. Although Norah’s departure meant a long absence from the woman I loved, I could not regret it, for it was after all but a long road to the end I wished for. The two years would soon be over. And then  —  and then life would begin in real earnest, and along its paths of sorrow as of joy Norah and I should walk with equal steps.

Alas for dreaming! The dreams of the daylight are often more delusive than even those born of the glamour of moonlight or starlight, or of the pitchy darkness of the night.

It had been arranged that we were not on this day to go over to Knockcalltecrore, as Norah and her father wanted the day together. Miss Joyce, Norah’s aunt, who usually had lived with them, was coming back to look after the house. So after breakfast Dick and I smoked and lounged about, and went over some business matters, and we arranged many things to be done during my absence. The rain still continued to pour down in a perfect deluge; the road-way outside the hotel was running like a river, and the wind swept the rain-clouds so that the drops struck like hail. Every now and again, as the gusts gathered in force, the rain seemed to drive past like a sheet of water; and looking out of the window we could see dripping men and women trying to make head-way against the storm. Dick said to me:

“If this rain holds on much longer it will be a bad job for Murdock. There is everyfearthat if the bog should break under the flooding he will suffer at once. What an obstinate fool he is! he won’t take any warning. I almost feel like a criminal in letting him go to his death, ruffian though he is; and yet what can one do? We are all powerless if anything should happen.” After this he was silent. I spoke the next: “Tell me, Dick, is there any earthly possibility of any harm coming to Joyce’s house in case the bog should shift again? Is it quite certain that they are all safe?” “Quite certain, old fellow. You may set your mind at rest on that score. In so far as the bog is concerned, she and her father are in no danger. The only way they could run any risk of dangerwould be by theirgoing to Murdock’s house, or by being by chance lower down on the Hill, and I do not think that such a thing is likely to happen.” This set my mind more at ease, and while Dick sat down to write some letters I continued to look at the rain. By-and-by I went down to the tap-room, where there were always a lot of peasants, whose quaint speech amused and interested me. When I came in one of them, whom I recognised as one of our navvies at Knocknacar, was telling something, for the others all stood round him.

Andy was the first to see me, and said, as I entered: “Ye’ll have to go over it all agin, Mike. Here’s his ‘an’r, that is just death on to bogs  —  an’ the like,” he added, looking at me slyly.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Oh, not much, yer ‘an’r, except that the bog up at Knocknacar has run away intirely. Whin the wather rose in it, the big cuttin’ we med tuk it all out, like butthermilk out iv a jug. Begor, there never was seen such a flittin’ since the wurrld begun! An’, more betoken, the quare part iv it is that it hasn’t left the bit iv a hole behind it at all, but it’s all mud an’ wather at the prisint mi nit.” I knew this would interest Dick exceedingly, so I went for him. When he heard it he got quite excited, and insisted that we should go off to Knocknacar at once. Accordingly Andy was summoned, the mare was harnessed, and, with what protection we could get in the way of wraps, we went off to Knocknacar through the rain-storm. As we went along we got some idea of the damage done, and being done, by the wonderful rainfall. Not only the road was like a river, and the mountain streams were roaring torrents, but in places the road was flooded to such a dangerous depth that we dared not have attempted the passage only that, through our repeated journeys, we all knew the road so well. However, we got at last to Knocknacar, and there found that the statement we heard was quite true. The bog had been flooded to such a degree that it had burst out through the cutting which we had made, and had poured in a great stream over all the sloping moorland on which we had opened it. The brown bog and black mud lying all over the stony space looked like one of the lava streams which mark the northern side of Vesuvius. Dick went most carefully all over the ground wherever we could venture, and took quite a number of notes. Indeed, the day was beginning to draw in when, dripping and chilled, we prepared for our return journey through the rain. Andy had not been wasting his time in the sheebeen, and was in one of his most jocular humors; and when we, too, were fortified with steaming hot punch, we were able to listen to his fun without wanting to kill him.

On the journey back, Dick, when Andy allowed him speech, explained to me the various phenomena which we had noticed. When we got back to the hotel it was night. Had the weather been fine we might have expected a couple more hours of twilight; but with the mass of driving clouds overhead, and the steady downpour of rain, and the fierce rush of the wind, there was left to us not the slightest suggestion of day.

We went to bed early, for I had to rise by daylight for our journey on the morrow. After lying awake for some time listening to the roarof the storm and the dash of the rain, and wondering if it were to go on forever, I sank into a troubled sleep.

It seemed to me that all the nightmares which had individually afflicted me during the last week returned to assail me collectively on the present occasion. I was a sort of Mazeppa in the world of dreams. Again and again the fatal Hill and all its mystic and terrible associations haunted me; again the snakes writhed around and took terrible forms; again she I loved was in peril; again Murdock seemed to arise in new forms of terror and wickedness; again the lost treasure was sought under terrible conditions; and once again I seemed to sit on the table rock with Norah, and to see the whole mountain rush down on us in a dread avalanche, and turn to myriad snakes as it came; and again Norah seemed to call to me, “Help! help! Arthur, save me! save me!” And again, as was most natural, I found myself awake on the floor of my room  —  though this time I did not scream  —  wet and quivering with some nameless terror, and with Norah’s despairing cry in my ears.

But even in the first instant of my awakening I had taken a resolution which forthwith I proceeded to carry into effect. These terrible dreams, whencesoever they came, must not have come in vain; the grim warning must not be despised. Norah was in danger, and I must go to her at all hazards.

I threw on my clothes and went and woke Dick. When I told him my intention he jumped up at once and began to dress, while I ran down-stairs and found Andy, and set him to get out the car at once. “Is it goin’ out agin in the shtorm ye are? Begor, ye’d not go widout some rayson, an’ I’m not the bhoy to be behind whin ye want me. I’ll be ready, yer’an’r, in two skips iva dead salmon;” and Andy proceeded to make, or rather complete, his toilet, and hurried out to the stable to get the car ready. In the mean time Dick had got two lanterns and a flask, and showed them to me.

“We may as well have them with us. We do not know what we may want in this storm.”

It was now past one o’clock, and the night was pitchy dark. The rain still fell, and high overhead we could hear the ceaseless rushing of the wind. It was a lucky thing that both Andy and the mare knew the road thoroughly, for otherwise we never could have got on that night. As it was, we had to go much more slowly than we had ever gone before.

I was in a perfect fever. Every second’s delay seemed to me like an hour. I feared  —  nay more, I had a deep conviction  —  that some dreadful thing was happening, and I had over me a terrible dread that we should arrive too late.

CHAPTER XVII

 
As we drew closer to the mountain, and recognised our whereabouts bythe various landmarks, my dread seemed to grow. The night was now well on, and there were signs of the storm abating; occasionally the wind would fall off a little, and the rain beat with less dreadful violence. In such moments some kind of light would be seen in the sky  —  or, to speak more correctly, the darkness would be less complete  —  and then the new squall which followed would seem by contrast with the calm to smite us with renewed violence. In one of these lulls we sawforan instant the mountain rise before us, its bold outline being shown darkly against a sky less black. But the vision was swept away an instant after by a squall and a cloud of blinding rain, leaving onlya dreadful memory of some field forgrim disaster. Then we went on our way even more hopelessly; for earth and sky, which in that brief instant we had been able to distinguish, were now hidden under one unutterable pall of gloom.

On we went slowly. There was now in the air a thunderous feeling, and we expected each moment to be startled by the lightning’s flash or the roar of heaven’s artillery. Masses of mist or sea-fog now began to be borne landward bythe passing squalls. In the time that elapsed between that one momentary glimpse of Knockcalltecrore and our arrival at the foot of the boreen a whole lifetime seemed to me to have elapsed, and in my thoughts and harrowing anxieties I recalled  —  as drowning men are said to do before death  —  every moment, every experience since I had first come within sight of the western sea. The blackness of myfears seemed onlya carrying inward of the surrounding darkness, which was made more pronounced by the flickering of our lanterns, and more dread by the sounds of the tempest with which it was laden. When we stopped in the boreen Dick and I hurried up the Hill, while Andy, with whom we left one of the lanterns, drew the horse underthe comparative shelter of the windswept alders which lined the entrance to the lane. He wanted a short rest before proceeding to Mrs. Kelligan’s, where he was to stop the remainder of the night, so as to be able to come for us in the morning. As we came near Murdock’s cottage Dick pressed my arm.

“Look!” he called to me, putting his mouth to my ear so that I could hear him, for the storm swept the Hill fiercely here, and a special current of wind came whirling up through the Shleenanaher. “Look! he is up even at this hour.

There must be some villany afloat!” When we got up a little farther he called to me again in the same way. “The nearest point of the bog is here; let us look at it.” We diverged to the left, and in a few minutes were down at the edge of the bog.

It seemed to us to be different from what it had been. It was raised considerably above its normal height, and seemed quivering all over in a very strange way. Dick said to me, very gravely: “We are just in time. There’s something going to happen here.”

“Let us hurry to Joyce’s,” I said, “and see if all is safe there.”

“We should warn them first at Murdock’s,” he said. “There may not be a moment to lose.” We hurried back to the boreen, and ran on to Murdock’s, opened the gate, and ran up the path. We knocked at the door, but there was no answer. We knocked more loudly still, but there came no reply.

“We had better make certain,” said Dick; and I could hear him more easily now, for we were in the shelter of the porch. We opened the door, which was only on the latch, and went in. In the kitchen a candle was burning, and the fire on the hearth was blazing, so that it could not have been long since the inmates had left. Dick wrote a line of warning in his pocket-book, tore out the leaf, and placed it on the table where it could not fail to be seen byanyone entering the room. We then hurried out, and up the lane to Joyce’s.

As we drew near we were surprised to find a light in Joyce’s window also. I got to the windward side of Dick, and shouted to him:

“A light here also; there must be something strange going on.” We hurried as fast as we could up to the house. As we drew close the door was opened, and through a momentary lull we heard the voice of Miss Joyce, Norah’s aunt:

“Is that you, Norah?”

“No,” I answered. “Oh, is it you, Mr. Arthur? Thank God, ye’ve come! I’m in such terror about Phelim and Norah. They’re both out in the shtorm, an’ I’m nigh disthracted about them.” By this time we were in the house, and could hear each other speak, although not too well even here, for again the whole force of the gale struck the front of the house, and the noise was great.

“Where is Norah? Is she not here?”

“Oh no, God help us! Wirrastru, wirrastru!” The poor woman was in such a state of agitation and abject terror that it was with some difficulty we could learn from her enough to understand what had occurred. The suspense of trying to get her to speak intelligibly was agonising, for now every moment was precious; but we could not do anything or make any effort whatever until we had learned all that had occurred. At last, however, it was conveyed to us that early in the evening Joyce had gone out to look after the cattle, and had not since returned. Late at night old Moynahan had come to the door half drunk, and had hiccoughed a message that Joyce had met with an accident, and was then in Murdock’s house. He wanted Norah to go to him there, but Norah only was to go and no one else. She had at once suspected that it was some trap of Murdock’s for some evil purpose, but still she thought it better to go, and accordingly called to Turco, the mastiff, to come with her, she remarking to her aunt, “I am safe with him, at any rate.” But Turco did not come. He had been restless and groaning for an hour before, and now on looking for him they had found him dead. This helped to confirm Norah’s suspicions, and the two poor women were in an agony of doubt as to what they should do. While they were discussing the matter Moynahan had returned, this time even drunker than before, and repeated his message, but with evident reluctance. Norah had accordingly set to work to cross-examine him, and after a while he admitted that Joyce was not in Murdock’s house at all  —  that he had been sent with the message and told when he had delivered it to go away to Mother Kelligan’s, and not to ever tell anything whatever of the night’s proceedings, no matter what might happen or what might be said. When he had admitted this much he had been so overcome with fright at what he had done that he began to cry and moan, and say that Murdock would kill him for telling on him. Norah had told him he could remain in the cottage where he was if he would tell her where her father was, so that she could go to look for him; but that he had sworn most solemnly that he did not know, but that Murdock knew, for he told him that there would be no chance of seeing him at his own house for hours yet that night. This had determined Norah that she would go out herself, although the storm was raging wildly, to look for herfather. Moynahan, however, would not stay in the cottage, as he said he would be afraid to, unless Joyce himself were there to protect him; for if there were no one but women in the house Murdock would come and murder him and throw his body in the bog, as he had often threatened. So Moynahan had gone out into the night by himself, and Norah had shortly after gone out also, and from that moment she  —  Miss Joyce  —  had not set eyes on her, and feared that some harm had happened. This the poor soul told us in such an agony of dread and grief that it was pitiful to hear her, and we could not but forgive the terrible delay. I was myself in deadly fear, for every kind of harrowing possibility rose before me as the tale was told. It was quite evident that Murdock was bent on some desperate scheme of evil; he either intended to murder Norah or to compromise her in some terrible way. I was almost afraid to think of the subject. It was plainto me that by this means he hoped not only to gratify his revenge, but to get some lever to use against us, one and all, so as to secure his efforts in searching for the treasure. In my rage against the cowardly hound I almost lost sight of the need of thankfulness for one great peril avoided.